This makes for an interesting intersection of a few of my favorite things: cartoons, computers, musical theatre, and language.

Let It Go isn't my favorite tune in the movie (I've always preferred the funny songs in Disney movies to the poppy earworm singles -- and this one sounds like Can You Feel the Love Tonight? played in half-time) but I've been a fan of Idina Menzel since high school and it's hard to think of a better showcase of her vocal range.

And damned if they didn't find 24 other people who sound exactly like Idina Menzel.

Actually, the total number of dubs is 41; I heard about this video on NPR yesterday when they interviewed Rick Dempsey, Senior VP of Disney Character Voices International.

And they really went the extra mile with localization -- there are actually separate dubs for French and Canadian French, and for Catalan Spanish and Latin American Spanish. (My ear's just good enough to catch "soy" and wonder what she's singing instead of "Let it go". Translating a whole script into different idioms is daunting enough; matching meter and rhyme for the songs is that much tougher.)

Speaking of Disney's vast wealth, if you paid the premium on any Disney DVD or Blu-Ray that included one of those digital copies, there is now an app for iStuff (and later, others) that can access that digital copy and other digital forms you might have bought a Disney film under. The nice thing about it is that it streams more than just the film itself, giving you access to various extra features and the like to make it worth using (potentially) over just watching a stream somewhere else.

I mostly bring it up because if you sign up for it right now (and for however long into the future?) you get a copy of The Incredibles. So hey, excuse to watch the Incredibles if you've got an iDevice.

The new series will follow Scrooge McDuck, his curious and mischief-making grandnephews — Huey, Dewey and Louie — and the optimistic yet temperamental Donald Duck as they embark on high-flying adventures worldwide. Other beloved characters slated to be in the new stories are: Duckworth, Gyro Gearloose, Launchpad McQuack, Flintheart Glomgold, Magica DeSpell & Poe, Ma Beagle and the Beagle Boys (Burger Beagle, Bouncer Beagle), Mrs. Beakley and Webbigail Vanderquack.

Given that the original cast members have reprised their roles in several Disney specials and WayForward's remake of the NES game, I wouldn't be surprised if they came back for the new show. Granted, Young and Foray are 96 and 97, respectively, but I'd love to have them if they want to do it.

In Beauty and the Beast, Gaston ate four dozen eggs daily when he was a child. That's fourty-eight eggs a day. As an adult he adds another dozen, tallying up to sixty eggs a day. This is nothing short of genocide. My theory for why Gaston is beloved by the townsfolk is that some time prior to the start of the movie, France was overrun with poultry. Helpless at the claws of the chickens, the people of France were preparing to abandon their country, when a lone child stepped forward. "I'll eat the eggs", a young Gaston bellowed, "And I will save our homeland". And so it was, Gaston ate and ate until he was roughly the size of a barge. How the cholesterol didn't kill him can only be attributed to his inhuman fortitude.

This is where the story turns tragic. What Gaston hadn't accounted for was developing an addiction to the eggs. As he aged, he ate more and more, and with the chicken-crisis over, his addiction began costing him financially. There's a scene during Gaston's song where he motions to a wall full of his hunting trophies. But why are they there? Does he own the bar? No, he sold them for egg money. The fact he never brings up his egg addiction or his prior heroism can be attributed to another one of Gaston's defining character traits: his struggle to be emotionally open, and his modesty. It's not easy being the man who saved France.

I think the saddest scene is when Belle shows Gaston the book, and he holds it upside down. See, Gaston seems brutish, but remember - his entire childhood was spent eating eggs. He didn't have time for an education; he sacrificed his upbringing for his countrymen. He can't even hold a book correctly. What Gaston wants to say, what he's struggling to articulate, is "Belle, I'm dying. A life long diet of a quite frankly insane number of eggs has left my body bloated with tumors. Before I shove off this mortal coil, I want children, who might experience a world without the oppression I have suffered". Belle cruelly mocks him, which goes to make you wonder who the real beast is.

When Gaston sees the Beast in the mirror, two thoughts run through his head. First, he sees his countrymen in danger once more, and despite being riddled with egg-tumors, wants to lead the masses to one last charge of glory since fighting for France is all he knows. Second, he realizes Beast's head is about a month's worth of egg-money. So he sieges the castle, and in one of Disney's most tragic moments, plummets to his death.

Another reason Gaston wants to marry Belle is because, as mentioned above, all he knows how to do is to fight for France and its people. Gaston saw Maurice as a genuine danger, and he's not wrong; consider the hellish contraption Maurice created. One look at that war machine and Gaston hatched a plan; marry Belle, and get close enough to Maurice to talk him down. Mind you, he did love Belle, and wanted to be the father of her children, but the danger presented by Maurice forced his plan into action immediately. When that fell through, he had no choice but to throw Maurice in the asylum (something marrying Belle would have fixed, since he would once again be close enough to Maurice to influence him).

Oh it's fantastically drawn and composed, that's what's so amazing about it. Even the establishing shot of the Seinfeld apartment is on point. If this was a slapdash effort it'd pass everybody by. But this person has a great deal of talent and skill, and then put it into the worst goddamn thing in the world.

のほも is such a good word?? the concept is kind of hard to fully get across in translation, but basically it means a feeling of pure, deep, platonic affection, and i think thats beautiful